“On your head.”
Her lopsided smile flattened as she raised her eyes as if she’d be able to see the glasses. “Right. Of course. Fashion accessory, not eyewear.”
Sullivan pushed away from the post, plucked the sunglasses off her head, and settled them on her face. “Better?”
Ramsey nodded dumbly, frozen in place by the odd intimacy of the gesture. “Um, thanks.”
“Can you manage the earrings?”
“Yes,” she said in dry accents, thrusting the clutch at his chest. When she was certain he had it, she inserted the lacy gold leaf earrings, turning her head right and left as she did so. He was staring at the curve of her neck and shoulder when she faced him again. She touched the spot where she felt the focus of his eyes. “Do I—” Ramsey stopped because he was shaking his head, and his eyes had already moved back to hers. Her fingertips dropped away; so did her self-consciousness.
Recovering some measure of poise, she pointed to the door behind her and said, “I need to set the house alarm.”
“Sure.”
She was back in seconds. He held out her clutch. She took out her keys, locked the deadbolt, and then announced she was ready to go. “I haven’t made us late, have I?”
“Nope. On time. I might have been a few minutes early.”
“Because you thought you’d have to nudge me along?”
“No, because if I’m on time I feel as if I’m late.”
“Oh.” She started down the steps to the sidewalk, very much aware that he was following close behind. It surprised her that she didn’t feel unnerved with him at her back, but neither was it completely comfortable. That would take some time, if there was time. She never knew if there would be.
He came abreast of her on the sidewalk. It was all she could do to keep from glancing sideways at him. He had looked quite handsome standing on her porch. It occurred to her to tell him that he cleaned up well, but then that was just a trite throwaway line because even out of uniform, he was always a little on the shiny side.
She had noticed his dark hair was still a bit damp and spiky. It was encouraging. Maybe he, too, had waited until the last possible minute to get ready, or in his case, the last possible minute he could delay and still be early. It made her dizzy to think about that kind of planning.
He wore an easy fit black polo shirt with thin red horizontal stripes and the maker’s logo unobtrusively stitched on the chest. The shirt was tucked into black trousers. The belt was black leather with a simple silver buckle; his shoes were black leather and suede loafers. It was the socks, though, that gave her pause. They were bright red with black polka dots, and she was fairly certain the fabric was baby alpaca, not cashmere. She’d seen a story onSunday Morningabout a New York hosiery designer who was giving men new choices in footwear. She wondered if Sullivan had been inspired by the same story or if he had always had the sense that a man’s fashion statement shouldn’t be limited to his tie.
“Do you own a lot of ties?” she asked. The non sequitur made him stop suddenly as he opened the car door for her.
His forehead puckered between his eyebrows. “What?”
Ramsey shrugged. “It’s a fair question. Do you own a lot of ties?”
“What in the world—” He stopped, shook his head. “No. Never mind. I’m not going to ask. Define ‘a lot’.”
“More than six.”
“I own three.”
“All right. That’s what I was thinking. You let your socks speak for you.”
He looked down at his feet, raised one just enough to allow the sock to show. “You noticed.” When he looked back at her, he was grinning. “You think they’ll annoy Aunt Kay?”
One of Ramsey’s eyebrows lifted in an arch that topped the rim of her sunglasses. “Annoy her? I don’t think so. Not if she recognizes them as V.K. Nagrani’s. They are, aren’t they? The real deal.”
“Well, yeah. But how did you know?”
“I saw a story. They’re pretty expensive, those socks.”
He opened the door wider so she could slip in. “Sometimes you have to step out of the uniform. Socks kind of do it for me. But just so you know, this Beemer’s a rental.”
Ramsey settled into the black sedan’s passenger side seat. She waited until he closed the door and got in behind the wheel before she spoke. “I didn’t really notice the car.”
“The socks made that big of an impression? Huh. I’m going to keep that in mind. As expensive as they were, they’re still cheaper than a Beemer.”
